2014

This week we are joined by Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Tam and Thalen, with Kodra having to deal with some family stuff. I was not certain how much we would have to talk about, but like always we managed to fill a show full of all sorts of games that we had been playing. Thalen starts it off talking about his further adventures into the Magic Duels free to play game. Similarly with the launch of Fallout Shelter for android he has started playing that as well. Finally he talks about the recent Fantastic Four event in Marvel Heroes and how The Thing is the tankiest of tanks. Tam spent the day at an Infinity Tournament and talks about just how awesome the Seattle minature gaming scene has been.

Grace talks about her recent swap to spending most of her time in Wildstar and the excitement surrounding the impending free to play drop that is now on the public test server. Additionally she talks about her recent foray into the PVP system, and how generally cool the community seems to be surrounding it. While board games are normally the territory of Kodra, Grace mentions the Exploding Kittens card game and how much fun she has had with it since receiving it. Ashgar has followed in Tam’s footsteps and talks about his experiences playing Sword Art Online Hollow Fragment. Ash has also started on a brand new playthrough of Mass Effect with the intent of carrying one save game from one all the way through three. This of course spawns a conversation where we talk about our experiences with the Mass Effect series.

Finally I talk about my recent return to Rift, and my obsessions with Hellgate London. Additionally we talk about next weeks show, where we plan on talking about the storyline of the Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward expansion. We have purposefully kept discussion of plot points to a minimum, but we feel it is generally safe enough to start talking about where we think the game is going. We are announcing this ahead of time for the purpose of letting our listeners and readers join in the fun. Do you have any interesting theories or are there parts of the story that you didn’t quite grasp? We are taking in questions via email for this coming show, and we will go over them on the air. I should be a lot of fun and it is our first real attempt to do something like this.

Last night we had the whole gang back of Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tam and Thalen. Kodra fresh back from Gencon had many tales to tell of his proclivity for LARPing and his further descent into the Magic the Gathering Origins base set. He has now purchased a box, but instead of opening in one sitting he has decided to do something extremely cool with it, turning it into a series of mini draft for him and some of his Seatle area friends. Grace continues to spend time in Wildstar and in an effort to try and catch up Belghast has spent some time leveling there. There was a discussion of the various points that people stall out in that game when they outlevel their quest content. Grace also managed to play through Hatoful Boyfriend enough times to see every possible ending... and is amped about our impending AggroChat show.

For Tam and Ashgar this was a very Sword Art Online week, with Ashgar watching through the entirity of season one so that he can join Tam in playing Hollow Fragment on the PS4. Thalen rekindled his own Magic the Gathering roots as he began playing the brand new free to play Magic Duels. Additionally there is a new event happening in Marvel Heroes where bonus experience is given to playing the Fantastic Four which spawns a conversation about the hero teams we liked growing up. Bel talks about his Bel's Big Adventure Minecraft series and the quirks of playing Minecraft with a singlular purpose, and his adventures on the Everquest II Time Locked server. Finally we talk the elephant in the room... the World of Warcraft Legion expansion announcement from GamesCom. It was a lengthy discussion dense show, and hopefully you will all enjoy it.

I originally thought that when we set down to record this episode of AggroChat we would end up putting aside all pretense and simply talk about the Heavensward expansion for Final Fantasy XIV. However what happened in reality is we ended up recording an extremely length show where we basically did that… AND a normal show as well. While many or our weeks revolved around the launch of this new expansion… we had to do something to bide our time until the Friday launch. Grace has apparently been completely hooked on Marvel Super Heroes so we talked about that for awhile. The other game she has been playing is Wildstar, so we spent a good deal of time chatting about how that game has been progressing.

In Final Fantasy XIV before the outage we managed to take down Shiva and Odin once again so we talked a bit about that. Then myself, Tam and Kodra have been playing an awful lot of ArcheAge so we talk again about that and our progress so far. Then finally when we start talking about Heavensward we get sidetracked on a lengthy debate about the merits of flight in MMOs and whether or not it is simply GM cheats. Each of us brought our own perspectives to the conversation and quite honestly this could have been a show topic in itself. Finally we talk about our experience so far with the Heavensward expansion to close out the show. It is an extremely packed show, and clocks in just shy of two hours.

Tonight on AggroChat we have Belghast, Tamrielo, Thalen and Grace. This week Kodra is off playing a rather convincing Fred from Scrooby Doo at Origins, and Ashgar disappeared mysteriously moments before the recording… and we are hoping everything is okay. The rest of us talked about some recent experiences giving games a second glance. The first game on that list is Wildstar and both Belghast and Grace have spent a significant amount of time back in the game. It has been amazing just what an embattled and often times struggling team has managed to accomplish. Similarly Tamrielo and Thalen have been checking out ArcheAge to find that community is much improved. Tam talks at length about what he likes about the design of the game, and how it manages to do a better job at being Rift.

Since Ashgar was missing we felt the need to give a huge plug to the Four Job Fiesta program and talk at length about how exactly it works. For Ashgar the “fiesta” is like a religion, and each June we know that sooner or later we are going to be hit up to join it again. This year he has pledged $10 for each AggroChat host that manages to beat the game and $5 for each AggroChat listener that beats the game and includes @AggroChat twitter handle on their victory shot. We talk about a number of other games including Lego Worlds, World of Warcraft, Shadowrun Returns and of course our getting prepared for the launch of the Heavensward expansion in Final Fantasy XIV. It is a big show chock full of lots of interesting discussions that we hope you will enjoy. “Please look forward to it.”

This week I start off the show, and even title it with a pretty massive plug for the Newbie Blogger Initiative. What is the NBI you ask? Well this is the time of the year when Veteran bloggers support new folks wanting to get started in this madness. This year we are making an extra special push to try and help new podcasters, youtubers, and streamers along with the bloggers. Additionally I myself am making a special push to try to rekindle the fire in some of our wayward bloggers who are no longer as regular as they used to be. The entire month of May is dedicated to helping folks get started and find their niche, and since most of the AggroChat crew have participated in the past, it is time to get the word out.

As far as the rest of the show we had myself, Tam, Ashgar, Kodra and Grace. As always we spent a good deal of time talking Final Fantasy XIV since we are all still heavily playing it. Right now Greysky Armada our Free Company is back holding the bronze medal again for being the third most active Free Company on our server Cactuar. This week also saw myself and Grace spending some more time playing some more Wildstar. The Black Dagger Society the guild I am connected to has been having a guild night on Fridays and as such I have started joining in the festivities. Additionally there was talk of Marvel Heroes, Diablo 3, Ashgar returning to his Gameboy Advance roots, Tam winning his first Infinity tournament since the move, and similarly Kodra beating VVVVVV for the first time in his new place. Since this month is devoted to Shadowrun for the Gameclub we are also starting to play some of this. It was a fun show in spite of being in that pre-E3 gaming doldrum.